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Hey if anyone could give me tips on layering and blending for painting my models i will be super grateful.

Links too good tutorials would be awesome as well.

Thanks for your time.

If youre planning on using a brush to blend, its worth investing in a retarder medium. This stops your paint from drying so quickly, and allows you to work your 2 colours back and forth to achieve a nice blend. You can see i used it on this BA terminator. Tbf youre not off to a bad start, but the key to a good blend is working the colours into one another

Its not bad.

One thing that can help greatly would be a wet pallet and or some drying retardant. As well keeping the paint thinned.

Edit: two things / three

Sweet, i do a lot of oil paintings so wet paint is very common to me i will get myself some acrylic medium or something; any suggestions as to what i can use to keep my paint/pallet wet?

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
If youre planning on using a brush to blend, its worth investing in a retarder medium. This stops your paint from drying so quickly, and allows you to work your 2 colours back and forth to achieve a nice blend. You can see i used it on this BA terminator. Tbf youre not off too a bad start, but the key to a good blend is working the colours into one another

This is for wet blending, not layering. Which is an awesome blending technique for sure, but just so that's clear. I personally can't wet blend for my life, but I can layer all right when I have the patience.

If you want to layer (dry layer over dry layer), go for very thin paints and very gradually work through the tones. Mix a little at a time, and don't jump from one color to the next if you want a really smooth transition. Also remember that you can use midtones or darker shades as a glaze to smooth out rougher spots, you don't have to go only in one direction.

The paint should be thin enough that you don't really see the change in color on the first stroke. The paint brush should soak some up, then be dabbed on a paper towel to drain the excess before being applied very LIGHTLY to the surface. It should only put enough paint on so that it dries within a few moments on the surface of the model. The less the better. Keep stroking over and focus more on the parts where you want to focus the color (like highlights on raised edges), and eventually you'll see the color start to shift. Once you get color where you want it, then mix in the next tone and repeat. You need a lot of patience to really get great results.

If you want silky smooth transitions much quicker, like for general troops, wet blending is something to explore for sure. Just not something I'm any good at, so I'll leave it for others.


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Barnzie4Moop wrote:
Sweet, i do a lot of oil paintings so wet paint is very common to me i will get myself some acrylic medium or something; any suggestions as to what i can use to keep my paint/pallet wet?

Oh, yeah, just go for wet blending then.

A wet pallet is just a sponge in a Tupperware thing filled just enough with water + a piece of parchment on top. it wicks the moisture up onto the parchment so the paints dont dry.

You can easily make one or just buy one from like P3

Also

Liquitex makes a retarder iirc.

Sweet i will probably try each type see how they turn out.

Got any pics evertras?

Barnzie4Moop wrote:
Sweet, i do a lot of oil paintings so wet paint is very common to me i will get myself some acrylic medium or something; any suggestions as to what i can use to keep my paint/pallet wet?

You can look into wet pallettes. I personally dont use one because im too lazy to make one. And with a retarder medium the paint will stay wet on a regular pallette anyway. Just add water to thin a little each time you put more colour on the brush.

Barnzie4Moop wrote:
Sweet i will probably try each type see how they turn out.

Got any pics evertras?

From me? I did these cloaks with relatively careful layers.



And the leafy loincloth of this Treeman was done with layers:



Wet blending is probably going to be your preferred method just because you've got a lot of experience with it in oil painting already.

Thanks guys...

Nice stuff Evertras... I mean real quality!

Started with Caliban green, then added goblin green slowly till I was working with goblin green, then added scorpion until I was about three shades lighter than scorpion green.

Incidentally with deathwing I drybrush.

Prime grey
Graveyard Earth
Kommando Khaki
Dheneb Stone
Wash with gryphone sepia
Drybrush with dheneb stone
Drybrush with bleached bone.


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PS Your terminator looks grand if a little rough round the edges, but TDA is SUPPOSED to look rough round the edges its designed for front line work.

I like the terminator theme in this thread.

Cheers, I've got myself (DIY that is) a wet pallet and the colors have gone on a lot smoother and thinner this time will post pics soon.

Likewise, terminators are 'badass.'